Discourse – Sanity Decays

It has been a long time since I’ve written anything for Nahhhhh. Things got kind of crazy (not just for me, but for all of us) and we all took some time off. While the exact future of the site still is up in the air, I’ve missed writing about music and since some amazing records have come out so far this year, I figured what better time than now to try and bring Nahhhhh back to life. With that being said, recall back to several months ago to a review I wrote for Xibalba’s newest record Tierra y Libertad. In that article I spoke very highly of a record label by the name Closed Casket Activities, who released Tierra y Libertad.

Once again, I need to make mention of this label because of their incredible ability to find talent. This time I’m talking about Discourse and their new record, Sanity Decays, which was released earlier this year.

I’ll start firstly and say flat out that this record is my favorite to have been released so far this year. It’s still early and there is plenty of time left for other material to come out and surpass Sanity Decays (I’m looking at you King Nine and Twitching Tongues) but for now, nothing has really come close to Discourse’s debut full length.

There’s a multitude of reasons as to why this record stands so far above anything released so far in 2015 but the most significant fact is that it’s apparent the band didn’t try to go crazy and try to wow the hardcore community; they simply wrote the record they would have wanted to hear and didn’t try to be over experimental with their sound. It is very easily noticeable that they wrote this record for no one but themselves and did not try to bend to the trends that are popular in hardcore right now.

SanityDecays takes a metallic approach to hardcore. This is obviously a direct influence of the prevalent metal scene in Florida, where Discourse calls home However this influence is very subtle and the group does throw it in your face. Rather, they use that influence to add slight touch of uniqueness here and there, helping to make the record stand out.

Another reason I like this record so much is that it covers many topics lyrically, ranging from the Straight Edge to police brutality. The wide variety of topics discussed increases the record’s long term listen-ability. Records which have songs about the same subject again and again grow tiresome very quickly and Discourse did a excellent job of avoiding this.

Ultimately, I’m not confident that Sanity Decay will remain at the top throughout the entirety of 2015. However, what I am confident in is that it will finish out the year as a top 5 record for me. It was released several months ago, and I am still playing it on a regular basis, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change anytime soon.